Page 10 of Stormvein

The sun is setting, casting shadows all around us. Nothing about our surroundings is familiar, which makes me think we’re approaching Stonehaven from a different path than the one Sacha led me through. I follow Varam’s lead, focusing solely on the mechanical process of putting one foot in front of the other, taking step after step.

Each one carries me farther from the river where Sacha fell and closer to ... what? Safety? Purpose? Vengeance? The future stretches before me, formless and terrifying.

Only one thing remains certain. I can never return to who I was. Ellie Bennett from Chicago died at River Crossing just as surely as Sacha did. That Ellie is gone now, changed beyond recognition by power and loss.

The mist stalker pauses ahead, turning to look at me, head tilting. I’m sure it’s sensing my thoughts.

I press my fingers against the hidden ring as we finally crest the last ridge, Stonehaven’s concealed entrance becoming visible in the mountainside ahead. The metal pulses once against my skin, so faintly I might have imagined it, before going still again.

This is all I have left of him. A token of power and memory, of questions that may never be answered, of something unfinished between us that can never be completed now.

I’ve never felt more alone in my life. Yet somehow, I know I’m not. Whatever part of him remains, in the ring and in the shadows that now mingle with my power, they are with me still. Whether as a burden or blessing, I cannot yet tell.

Chapter Three

ELLIE

When obedience breaks, the fragments cut both jailer and bound.

Authority Codes

The last mileto Stonehaven feels like it takes an eternity. Each step requires more effort than it should, the strange energy straining against the edges of my control. But it’s not only the power threatening to break loose, it’s the crushing weight of what we’ve lost.

He can’t be gone. He can’t be.

The words circle in my mind like a prayer I don’t believe anymore. I force the grief down. If I let myself think that he’s dead, if I accept that I watched him die and couldn’t save him … I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive it. The power responds to that terror, clawing at my ribs from the inside.

My eyes burn with tears I refuse to shed. Not here. Not when I have to face his people and watch while Varam tells them their hope is gone.

The mountain path we’re walking along is familiar now, but it blurs as exhaustion presses behind my eyes. The fatigue isnothing compared to the ache in my heart. We’re returning as bearers of the worst news imaginable. Their Vareth’el is never coming home.

How do we tell them? How do we look at their faces and destroy all the hope they found with his return?

We stop when we reach the hidden entrance. Varam places his palm against the rock face. I’m sure I see his hand shaking before he gets control of it. He’s been silent for miles, speaking only when he needed to change our direction. The stone shimmers to reveal the passage we left through just days ago.

This time, the mist stalker glides silently at my side … and Sacha doesn’t.

I should have done something. I should have learned how to control this power faster. I should have found a way to reach him before?—

Two guards straighten as we enter, their eyes immediately searching our group. One nods at Varam, confusion clear in his expression when he counts us, recounts, then searches behind us for a figure that isn’t there. He looks at Varam, but Sacha’s commander doesn’t meet his gaze. This isn’t the place to talk about what happened. The second guard stares at the mist stalker, then at the silver light surrounding me. His mouth falls open before discipline forces it shut. But I see the shock there. I’m not what I was when I left this place.

I’m something else now. Something born from loss and rage and power I never wanted.

We walk through the tunnels in silence. The familiar amber glow of lightstones illuminates our path, but everything is different now.Wrong. The shadows are empty and flat. I find myself watching them anyway, half-expecting them to shift and coalesce into his form, to hear his voice echoing from the darkness telling me this was all part of some plan I wasn’t told about.

They remain still.Ordinary. Just darkness without the life that gave them meaning.

Somewhere ahead are his quarters. His books, his maps, his journals. All of it waiting for a man who will never return.

The thought rips through me like teeth, and the power surges, flaring bright enough that the mist stalker turns its head toward me.

No. I won’t believe it. I can’t. If I accept he’s gone, I’ll have nothing left.

The central cavern falls silent when we emerge. The kind of silence that comes before terrible news. People stop mid-motion, conversations dying as they take in our appearance. Worn clothes, exhausted faces, the look of people who have witnessed something unthinkable. Several fighters who were there when we left for Ashenvale step forward, hope bright in their expressions until they begin to scan our group.

I watch as their expressions change. The dawning realization that settles over them. They’re counting, and the numbers don’t add up the way they should.

Six went out. Five have come back.